Read Online The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel - Free Book Online

regretted by everyone here at the New York Star , and marks a low in the 82-year history of the paper."
       He was almost in tears when he called Eilo back. "They plagiarized the New York Times' s Jayson Blair apology," he said, before she could say anything.
       "The what apology?"
       Gavin was pacing back and forth by the newsstand. The sidewalk blurred and quivered before him. "That bit about marking a low in the history of the paper? Eilo, they lifted that from the T imes ."
       "Gavin," she said, "what difference does it make?"
       "Plagiarism matters," he said. "They teach you that on the first day of journalism school. Actually, you know what? Before journalism school. I think they covered that in maybe the ninth grade. It makes a difference, Eilo, believe me. I would never, I would never —"
       "Gavin."
       "I would never do it, Eilo. Yeah, I lied. I made up people who gave me quotes because real people are so goddamn disappointing, Eilo, real people have nothing good to say when something happens, you ask them for a reaction and they just stare at you like 'uh . . .' and they can't string a sentence together, they're pitiful—"
       "Gavin, I'm worried about you."
       "Yeah, well." He meant for this to sound tough, but there was a lump in his throat. "It's all gone to hell," he said, and he forced a laugh but it sounded wrong. "I'm an unemployed guy with a bad reputation and no electricity."
       "Gavin, I want to buy you a ticket to Florida," she said. "Will you come back down here for a while and stay with me?"
       "Eilo," he said, "I can't let you—"
       "You'd do the same for me," she said. "Go home and pack and I'll call you with your flight information, okay?"

    G a v i n a r r i v e d home just as the locksmith was leaving. There was a notice of eviction on his apartment door and his first thought was that now Karen wouldn't be able to find him, but he'd been avoiding her since he'd lost his job and she hadn't called once. It occurred to him that she'd very likely seen the story in the Star by now. He stood looking at his apartment door for a moment, thought about tearing down the eviction notice, calling a different locksmith and pretending to be locked out, but he knew that locksmiths in Manhattan ran in the two-hundred-dollar range for lockouts and if he was going to lose his apartment anyway, why not today? He had the important things with him, the camera, the computer, his favorite hat.
       Back out on the street he wandered aimlessly for a while. The city was pressing down upon him. He thought at that moment that he might've done anything to escape the gray of the city, his static life, and that thought— anything— made him stop in his tracks. It was the worst thought he'd had in a while, because what was left to lose? His hands were shaking. He sat on a bench on a traffic island in the middle of Broadway until his cell phone rang.
       "Eilo, I want to get out of the city today," he said. "Can we do that? I don't recognize myself."
       "Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to come next week," she said, "but I suppose there's no reason why you couldn't fly down this afternoon. Does that give you enough time to pack your things?"
       "I don't have things," he said, "so yes. Thank you."
       "Hold on a moment." He heard the clatter of her typing and then she was quiet, reading a screen. "It looks like there's a flight departing LaGuardia in five hours," she said. "I'll book you a ticket."
       She gave him the flight information and he wrote it on his hand, hailed a taxi and watched the city slip away from him. It was late spring but a cloud hung low over the streets and Manhattan had already turned into a ghost of itself, gray with tower lights shining high in the fog. At LaGuardia he paid for the taxi with a credit card. He bought an extra pair of socks and two cheap paperbacks in the terminal. He refused to look directly at the New York Star in